Encyclopedia of Jewish Food

by Gil Marks

  2. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease the sheet.

  3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry dough 1/8 inch thick. For large knishes: Cut into 5-by-4-inch rectangles. Place ¼ cup filling in the center of each rectangle, draw the edges together, and pinch to seal. Or fold an edge over the filling and press the edges to seal. For small knishes: Cut the dough into 3-inch rounds or squares and fill with about 1 tablespoon filling.

  4. Place on the prepared baking sheet and brush with the egg wash. Bake until lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

  Variation

  Substitute Ashkenazic Flaky Pastry or Oil Pastry (see Ashkenazic Flaky Pastry (Muerbeteig)) for the potato pastry.

  Kolach

  Kolach is a round coffee cake with a sweet topping.

  Origin: Czech Republic

  Other names: kolac.

  Round breads are some of the most ancient of ritual foods. The ancient Slavonic word for wheel (kolo) gave rise to a medieval central European round bread loaf and then to an array of round breads and cakes enjoyed from the Balkans to Poland. Unquestionably, the most famous of these is the Czech kolach (kolache or kolacky plural). The original version was a large round made from sweet yeast dough, but smaller individual cakes have recently become widespread. Some modern cookie versions use cream cheese or sour cream pastry dough.

  Some speculate that originally people simply spread povidla (prune butter) on slices of baked sweet bread, but eventually bakers began adding it before cooking. Other favorite toppings include apricot, cherry, sweetened farmer cheese (tvaroh), poppy seed, raisin, orange marmalade, and pineapple preserves. Czechs enjoy kolache on Purim and for other celebrations. In America, small kolache have become common at many morning celebrations, such as brits.

  These Czech sweet, topped coffee cakes are enjoyed for Purim and smaller versions at morning celebrations such as brits.

  Czech Filled Small Yeast Cakes (Kolache)

  about 24 small pastries

  [DAIRY or PAREVE]

  1 recipe Ashkenazic Oil Pastry (Boymlteig)

  About 3 cups various Ashkenazic sweet pastry fillings (see Sweet Fillings)

  Egg wash (1 large egg beaten with 1 teaspoon cream, milk, or water)

  1. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry dough ¼ inch thick. Cut into 2½-inch rounds. Place about 3 inches apart on parchment paper—lined or greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise at room temperature until nearly doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

  2. Preheat the oven to 375°F.

  3. Using a flat-bottomed drinking glass or a floured thumb, press 1 large indentation into the center of each round, leaving a ½-inch border. Or using the back of a spoon, press 2 smaller indentations into each round. Brush the edges with the egg wash. Spoon about 1 tablespoon filling into the indentation(s).

  4. Bake until the kolache are golden brown or an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center registers about 180°F, about 12 minutes. Transfer the kolache to a wire rack and let cool. Wrap and store at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

  Kolichel

  Kolichel (also kalichel) is a Yiddish term denoting a cut from the shoulder of the cow; it is a relatively lean cut and is typically used as a pot roast and in beef borscht.

  Koraik (Wrap)

  Koraik, also known as Hillel sandwich, is a combination of matza and maror eaten at the Passover Seder.

  The Babylonian Talmud, in regard to the course of the Passover Seder, instructs people to first eat matza solo, then maror (bitter herbs) solo, and afterward to eat the matza and maror together in a ritual called koraik (Hebrew meaning "wrap/bind") "in memory of the Temple, like Hillel." Koraik is the tenth step of the Seder, the last before the festival meal.

  The word koraik reveals that at the time the ritual was named, matza was pliable and flexible, as it still is among Yemenites and some Sephardim and Mizrachim. For originally koraik was a wrap in the modern sense, a sort of sandwich made by enveloping some meat from the paschal offering and maror within soft matza, akin to the modern Middle Eastern shawarma (roast lamb wrap). Matza as a wrap, being convenient and portable, fits into the hasty nature of the first Passover. The Bible states, "And so shall you eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it b'chipazon [in haste], it is a Passover-offering to God." Thus the Talmudic matza wrap was a version of fast food. When Ashkenazim introduced hard, unflexible matza a number of centuries ago, koraik became a sandwich with bitter herbs.

  The koraik is dipped into charoset before eating it. Although we do not lean when eating the maror, the custom is to lean while eating the koraik, even though it contains maror, because of the matza component.

  The effect produced by Hillel's custom is that participants in the Seder taste all the ingredients at once, experiencing the totality of the rituals, instead of experiencing each separately and distinctly. All of Jewish history is experienced—the good and the bad, the past and the future—in one bite.

  Kosher

  Over the millennia, the dietary laws have helped to shape and define the Jewish people and the Jewish table. Kosher, the English pronunciation of the Hebrew adjective kasher, cocher in Ladino, means "fit/proper," denoting the fitness of ritual objects in general and the fitness of foods for consumption by Jews in particular. Kosher has nothing to do with being blessed by a rabbi. The modern term "kosher-style" connotes traditional Ashkenazic foods, but does not actually connote ritual "fitness."

  The Bible designates which mammals may or may not be consumed—only ruminants (animals that chew their cud) with completely cloven hooves. The pig, because it uniquely has cloven hooves but does not ruminate, embodies nonkosher animals. The Bible also lists the species of kosher fowl; their identification has been handed down from generation to generation. All birds of prey are strictly forbidden. Sea creatures must possess fins and cycloid (round) or ctenoid (comblike) scales in order to be kosher. Insects, except for several species of grasshoppers that are unknown to most communities, are not kosher. Produce, especially leafy greens, must be cleaned and inspected for insects and worms. All unprocessed vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, and minerals are inherently kosher and pareve.

  In order for even a "clean" mammal or fowl to be kosher, it must be ritually slaughtered (shechitah in Hebrew) by a trained and skilled slaughterer (shochet). An improperly slaughtered animal is classified as a neveilah, while the victim of a predator is called treif (torn), a term that has come to encompass all nonkosher (nonfit) food. In addition, certain parts of ruminants—the sciatic nerve and certain fats—must be removed. Since these forbidden parts are located in the rear of the animal and since the process to remove them—called treibern or nikkur—is complicated and time-consuming, Ashkenazim generally avoid the entire hindquarter, while Sephardim and Mizrachim still use it. Nonetheless, various veins, arteries, and membranes must also be skillfully removed from the front section of the animal. Fowl are treated similarly to cattle in terms of slaughtering and removal of blood. They are also not mixed with dairy products. Fish are treated differently than cattle and fowl, so the various laws of slaughter and salting do not apply.

  Kosher communities have long relied on trustworthy food purveyors like the Rosen Brothers meat store in Manhattan, here shown in 1973.

  The Bible also strictly forbids consuming the blood of animals and birds. Therefore, the blood must be removed, usually by soaking and salting (hadacha u'melicha). Liver is an exception and can only be kashered by broiling. If a period of three days passes following slaughter without washing and salting the meat, the blood is considered to have congealed in the capillaries and can only be removed by broiling. However, to avoid mistakes, meat that is not salted or rinsed within a seventy-two-hour period is not used.

  Soaking consists of immersing the meat in cool (about 50°F) water for 30 minutes. The meat is clea
nsed of any visible blood, then generously covered with a layer of salt on all exposed surfaces. The salt granules must be coarse enough to extract the blood without completely dissolving on the surface, yet not be so thick that they fail to dissolve at all; hence the term kosher salt (actually "kashering salt" would be more apt) denotes salt of a medium coarseness. Kosher salt also tends to be purer than many commercial brands of table salt. The coated meat is placed on a rack or inclined board (zalts bretl in Yiddish) in such a manner that the blood can flow off. It stands for one hour, then the meat is rinsed in water three times to remove any external salt and blood. At this point, the meat (or chicken) is finally ready for consumption.

  Before the 1950s, most kosher meat and poultry was soaked and salted at home. Today, almost all kosher meat and fowl in America and Israel comes already soaked and salted by the slaughterhouse or butcher. However, this must be confirmed, as must the reliability of the individual butcher. Mistakes, misrepresentation, or outright fraud, unfortunately, are not that uncommon. Caveat emptor applies to kosher.

  Even after an animal is properly slaughtered and processed, there are still actions that can render the food unfit. In three separate locations, the Bible forbids the cooking of a newborn kid in its mother's milk. Due to this repetition, the restriction was extended to include any cooking or mixing of meat and dairy products. Therefore, kosher homes maintain separate sets of dishes and utensils for meat and dairy foods. Items that are neither meat (fleishig in Yiddish and besari in Hebrew) nor dairy (milchig in Yiddish and chalavi in Hebrew) are known as pareve. Although fish is considered a pareve food, a late medieval tradition emerged of not mixing or eating it with meat or chicken.

  Food items are not the only products of concern to kosher households. Throughout history, soap was commonly made with animal fat, rendering it either unfit to use with dairy products or, more likely than not, unkosher. This changed after Israel Rokeach moved from his native Vilkovishitzky, Poland, to Kovno, Lithuania, and, under the counsel of the sage Rabbi Yitzchok Elchonon Spektor, began researching soap production. Rokeach developed a pareve (neutral) version of soap—he was the first person to use technology and chemistry in pursuit of kosher obervance. Rabbi Elchonon, however, was worried that people would confuse this new soap with the old unacceptable one, leading to a serious breach of kosher practice. In addition, people could easily use a soap bar previously used with meat with dairy utensils. After weeks of analyzing the situation, Rokeach contrived a solution, coloring the center part of the bars—blue to be used with dairy and red for meat—and pressing the word "kosher" in Hebrew letters onto each bar. Rabbi Elchonon enthusiastically endorsed the idea and, to demonstrate his approval, wrote a certification for Rokeach's soap, something he had never done previously and never did afterward with any other product. In 1870, Israel Rokeach opened a small factory in Kovno and eastern Europeans were soon using his kosher soap. In 1890 Russian-sponsored pogroms induced Rokeach to relocate to America, where he opened a new soap factory at 470 Grand Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side. In 1924, I. Rokeach & Sons Manufacturing introduced several other nonedible items for the kosher community, including "Aluminum Cleanser and Scouring Powder," as well as various edible products, including jams, honey, cocoa, borscht, and vegetable oil. For many decades, Rokeach products were a necessity for kosher consumers across the United States.

  By the beginning of the twentieth century, items aimed at the growing Jewish market, such as matza, horseradish, gefilte fish, and wine, were being produced in a growing number of Jewish-owned small factories in the United States. The reliability of these products was, as it had been in the past, either assumed or based upon the character of the owners. Then in 1925, America's premier pickle producer, the H. J. Heinz Company, decided to do something totally unprecedented—offer a kosher version of a national brand of food. At the time, it was a revolutionary idea. Nonetheless, America's Jewish community was growing in size and prosperity, and Heinz saw an opportunity to reach this untapped market. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America in conjunction with a Jewish advertising agency devised the first and still-most-recognized graphic symbol of kosher supervision, the OU, to place on the Heinz Vegetarian Baked Bean label to alert knowing customers that it was kosher. Thus was born a new industry—kosher certification (hashgachah in Hebrew). A kashrut supervisor is known as a mashgiach and a kosher certification as hechsher.

  Some other national companies eventually followed suit and secured supervision. Yet, for a long time, the number of kosher-supervised products remained relatively small. Meanwhile, rapid advances in food technology led to a confounding number of previously unknown ingredients and processes, making kosher supervision even more necessary. In addition, U.S. federal standards do not require the listing of minor ingredients, making it practically impossible to ascertain the kosher status of many items without some form of supervision. This meant that the kosher certification agencies needed expertise not only in Jewish law, but also in food chemistry, factory engineering, and food transport. And at the same time that food production was becoming ever more complicated, kosher standards were growing more stringent in many homes.

  The situation was to dramatically change in the early 1980s when Entenmann's, a large eastern U.S. bakery, placed its entire line under kosher supervision. The response went beyond the Jewish demographics in the market area, as well as the company's expectations. Entenmann's success pointed out a previously underappreciated phenomenon: The impact of kosher symbols reaches well beyond the Jewish community. There are millions of non-Jews who purchase kosher products for religious reasons, including Seventh Day Adventists and Muslims. In addition, vegetarians can be certain a kosher product does not contain hidden meat ingredients. People suffering from milk allergies are able to avoid hidden dairy products. Furthermore, the presence of a kosher symbol on a label often provides an added enticement for stores, all of which have limited shelf space, to carry that item or place it in a better position. Many distributors, the vital cog in the American food industry, take into account a kosher symbol when considering a new item. Thus a kosher product will usually have a competitive edge over a nonkosher rival. Once this became known, more of America's major food manufacturers obtained kosher supervision when possible.

  Also at this time, manufacturers began to insist on kosher tanker trucks, which hauled most of the essential liquid ingredients in prepared foods, including oils and corn syrup. This meant that suddenly almost any product could be easily converted to kosher. By the turn of the twenty-first century, around half of all national American manufactured foods had kosher supervision, accounting for nearly 70,000 products. Today, the OU, which appears on more than 60 percent of all kosher-certified products in the United States, certifies more than 2,400 corporations with 4,500 plants in 68 countries. Various other agencies, including Organized Kashrut Laboratories (OK), Chaf-K, Star-K, and numerous smaller ones, share the balance.

  (See also Bird, Chametz, Cheilev (Forbidden Fat), Fish, Fleishig, Glatt, Kitniyot, Liver, Milchig, Pareve, Plumba, and Passover (Pesach))

  Kouclas

  Kouclas is a dumpling cooked in Sabbath stews.

  Origin: Maghreb

  Other names: boulette, coclo, kora, kouclas.

  When the Sephardic Sabbath stew reached the Maghreb, it took on many new names, including dafina, frackh, and skhina, and new dimensions, including the addition of various dumplings called kouclas. Moroccan Sabbath stews are much more liquidy than the Ashkenazic type; the various components are frequently served separately and the dumpling is cut into slices. Every family and community has its own type of dumpling. The most widespread recipes contain rice or ground beef or a combination of both (kouclas bi ruz), which is akin to a sausage. Another type is made from bread crumbs (kouclas bi khobz) or, on Passover, matza. In Algeria, the meat dumpling is known as a bobinet, while a beef and egg hash dumpling is a megina. Historically, the dumpling was wrapped in a piece of cloth, but some cooks today use a
large piece of aluminum foil or an empty tin can.

  (See also Adafina and Hamin)

  Moroccan Rice and Meat Dumpling (Kouclas bi Ruz/Relleno de Arroz)

  1 small loaf

  [MEAT]

  1 cup long-grain rice

  4 ounces ground lamb or beef

  ½ cup (2 ounces) ground walnuts or 3 tablespoons raisins

  ½ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

  2 large eggs, lightly beaten

  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg or a pinch of ground ginger

  About ½ teaspoon salt

  Ground black pepper to taste

  In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients. Wrap loosely in a piece of cheesecloth and tie securely. Or wrap loosely in a piece of aluminum foil and poke several small holes to vent. Place in the center of a hamin/adafina (Sabbath stew) and add more water to the stew to account for absorption.

  Kreplach/Krepl

  Kreplach/krepl is a filled pasta triangle, most often served in soup.

  Origin: Eastern Europe

  Before the advent of Yiddish around 1250, the common language of the nascent Ashkenazim in northern France was a form of Old French, as evidenced in the names of early Ashkenazic dishes, including cholent (Sabbath stew), fluden (layered pastries), oublies (waffle wafers), and krepish. First recorded in the twelfth century, krepish consisted of a small piece of meat wrapped in a thin sheet of pastry and fried; the dish was somewhat similar to the later eastern European knish. The name of this very popular treat came from the Old French word crespe (curly/wrinkled), which much later also gave rise to crepe, the word for the thin French pancake, and is related to the En- glish word crisp and the German word krapfen (fried). Eastern Europeans innovated with a cheese filling, as Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Vienna (1180—1260) made a point of noting. He commented, "Jews in the Slavic lands also made krepish with cheese." Around the sixteenth century, eastern Europeans, about the same time that they ceased making krepish, began making filled pasta; this practice may have been a by-product of Tatar incursions from Asia or may have been introduced from Italy, or both. This was a dramatic innovation in northern Europe, since boiling food in water was far cheaper than frying it in fat. Poles called their filled pasta pierogi, while in the Ukraine, they became known as varenikes. The predominant eastern Ashkenazic name for filled pasta became krepl (or kreplekh plural).